Category Archives: Marketplace of ideas

Another county heard from on endowed chairs

Samuel Tenenbaum (pictured above, back when he was running Columbia’s Katrina relief effort) hipped me to this editorial from over in Anderson this morning. An excerpt:

We’re puzzled by Gov. Mark Sanford’s estimation of the effectiveness of endowed chairs for research, especially considering his usually forward-thinking positions on technology and economic development.
Last week, Mr. Sanford encouraged House lawmakers to reconsider a proposal that removes the cap on lottery proceeds for the Centers of Economic Excellence program…..
Before the lottery became official in South Carolina, we questioned whether endowed chairs were the best use of funds. But it’s clear that transforming our state into one that is in the forefront of research into health care, automotives and other economic development opportunities could not have gotten this far without the financial boost from lottery proceeds.
For once, South Carolina is thinking not just about what next year might bring but what could develop in five years or 10 years or even 20 years in the future as a result of research efforts right here at home.

Frankly, I’m puzzled as to why the Anderson paper is puzzled. Maybe it’s because it labors under the mistaken impression that Mr. Sanford "usually" manifests "forward-thinking positions on technology and economic development." Where they got that, I don’t know. If he’s done that, I must have been looking somewhere else at the time. His pattern ranges from neutral to hostile when it comes to ecodevo investments. If you’ll recall, his first big move in that arena came in his first month in office, when he put the brakes on Clemson’s I-CAR program. Soon after being hit by a tsunami of outrage from Upstate leaders, he let the project go ahead. Here’s what the chair of our endowed chairs board had to say Sunday about what that project has produced:

For instance, the endowed chairs program is a central component of the Clemson International Center for Automotive Research. The recruiting of three world-renowned experts in automotive engineering has already attracted major investment from companies such as BMW, Timken, Sun Microsystems and Michelin, and — all told more than $220 million in private investment and 500 jobs in the Upstate with an average salary of $75,000.

Also, here’s what BMW had to say recently about that partnership.

Again, as I said in my column Sunday, our governor doesn’t believe, deep down, in public investment in building our economy, whether we’re talking K-12 public schools or endowed chairs. He believes all that is needed for a robust economy is the right "soil conditions," which to him largely means reduced income taxes.

Finally, why did Samuel, the head of the Energy Party’s think tank, bring this to my attention? Because Samuel is the father of endowed chairs. He came up with the idea of spending lottery funds this way, he fought to convince Gov. Jim Hodges to go along with it, and has fought ever since against short-sighted efforts in the Legislature to kill or curtail the program and spend the money on something more immediately politically appealing. Samuel also served on the endowed chairs board from its inception until Mark Sanford replaced him last year.

But while he may be a cheerleader without portfolio, he cheers just as loudly as ever, and for good reason. The endowed chairs program, his baby, offers a lot to cheer about — and will continue to do so, if it survives the likes of Mark Sanford.

Dialogue about the ‘Wireless Cloud’

27 Replies

This morning, noting this post and the comments on it, Cindi sent a note to Gordon and Mike, whom she knows from past lives (Gordon was my boss when I was Cindi’s boss when she was a reporter 20 years ago; Mike Cakora was one of our "community columnists" when we had that program on the op-ed page several years back):

Good morning Gordon and Mike

I hope you’re both doing well.
I’ve just been reading over your comments on Brad’s blog, and it occurred to me that if y’all read the legislative study committee report that is the backdrop for the news release he posted, 1) you might find it interesting and 2) you might be able to help me think through this — either via e-mail or through a continued discussion on Brad’s blog, whichever you prefer.
I think the report should shed additional light on precisely what is being considered. In short, the majority report recommends hiring a consultant to further think through what to do with the ETV licenses; the minority report says this is plan is a recipe for losing a valuable state resource, which will revert to the feds if we don’t have a plan in place in less than a year.
My initial, uninformed take is to agree with the minority report, written by Rep. Dwight Loftis. By way of background, Sen. Jim Ritchie — who along with Loftis first got this conversation going in the State House a year ago — had been spinning me in advance on the importance of the state taking action. He’s a proponent of a laptop for every student, by the way, a plan I am not sold on….
I feel like this is something our editorial board needs to weigh in on at some point….
Also, since Rep. Loftis has added me to his broadband e-mail list, I have received a handful of articles on the topic that I would be happy to share with either or both of you if you’d like.

Cindi

Gordon urged me to post the report Cindi referred to on the blog so we could have a discussion here. Here’s the report.

Mike also answered as follows:

To the extent that I can contribute, I will. After my first scan of the report, I want to look at the FCC deadlines that the minority report is concerned about. I need to get clear on FCC terminology too.

Environmentally speaking, Clearwire looks to be involved with Sprint and Intel in trying to rescue WiMax according to breaking news.
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/02/sprint_clearwir_1.html

Thus Clearwire’s role as a proponent in some of the BTAs in this state is interesting. I pulled the latest lobbyist report and found that while all the usual players — Sprint Nextel, Intel, Time Warner, etc. — have lobbyists, Clearwire does not.

Mike Cakora

So if you’re hip to the highly technical issues involved, here’s your chance to jump in. Personally, I’m depending on Cindi to figure it out and help me make up my mind. This is your chance to help Cindi — and Mike and Gordon as well.

Back before I started this blog, people like Dan Gillmor told me that the Blogosphere was chock-full of people who knew more about various issues (especially technical ones) than I or any other journalist did. While that is occasionally the case, it hasn’t been as often as I’d like. This seems like a good opportunity to realize the true potential of blogging.

Sanford fails to derail progress — this time

51 Replies

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
LATE WEDNESDAY, I thought I had come up with an excuse to say something encouraging about Gov. Mark Sanford.
Such opportunities come so seldom that I didn’t want this idea to get away from me. I sent a note to my colleagues to enlist their help in remembering: “Should we do some kind of attaboy on the governor using his bully pulpit for this good cause (as opposed to some of the others he is wont to push)?” I was referring to his efforts to jawbone the Legislature into meaningful reform of our DUI law.
Moments later, I read the governor’s guest column on our op-ed page about a flat tax, which was his latest attempt to slip through an income tax cut, which at times seems to be the only thing he cares about doing as governor. This chased thoughts of praise from my mind.
For the gazillionth time, he cited Tom Friedman in a way that would likely mortify the columnist and author. His “argument,” if you want to call it that: Since The World Is Flat, folks on the other side of the world are going to get ahead of us if we take a couple of hours to pull together our receipts and file a tax return. Really. “Rooting around shoeboxes of receipts” once a year was going to do us in. (And never mind the fact that most paperwork is done on the federal return, with the state return piggybacking on that.)
Then, he argued that his plan for cutting the income tax (which was his point, not avoiding the onerous filing) was necessary to offset a proposed cigarette tax increase. The alternative would be “to grow government,” which is how he describes using revenue to get a three-to-one federal match to provide health care for some of our uninsured citizens.
Here in the real world, folks want to raise our lowest-in-the-nation cigarette tax to price the coffin nails beyond the means of teenagers. Everybody who has in any way participated in conversations at the State House about the issue over the last several years knows this. Yet the governor of our state, who seems only to have conversations with himself, can ask this about raising that tax: “(W)hat for, more government or a lower-tax option?” In his narrowly limited version of reality, those are the only considerations.
But enough about that essay from an alternative dimension. What I read on the front page the next morning drove it from my mind: “Sanford: ‘Endowed chairs’ a failure.” It was about his latest attack on one of the few really smart, strategic moves this state has made in the past decade.
It’s the one good thing to come out of Gov. Jim Hodges’ execrable state lottery. (I used to struggle to come up with good things to say about him, too, but this was one such thing.) The scholarships? We were doing that without the lottery, and would have expanded them without the lottery except Gov. Hodges vetoed that bill (because he wanted a lottery).
But a small chunk of the new “chump tax” was set aside to provide seed money to attract some of the best and brightest minds to South Carolina, and put them to work building our economy. Gov. Sanford has never liked this idea, because he doesn’t like the state to invest in the future in any appreciable way apart from land conservation (which is a fine idea, but hardly a shot in the arm to the economy). He believes we don’t need to invest more in education, or research, or even our Department of Commerce, which he takes such pride in having trimmed. His entire “economic development” plan is to cut the income tax. This attracts folks who have already made their pile and are looking for a tax haven in which to hide it, and makes him a hero to the only political entity in the nation that sees him as a hot property: the Club for Growth, whose president showed just how out of touch that group is with even the Republican portion of the electorate by suggesting John McCain pick Mr. Sanford as his running mate.
The thing that made this outburst from the governor particularly galling is that on Wednesday, I had met Jay Moskowitz, the new head of Health Sciences South Carolina — a consortium of universities and hospitals teaming together to make our state healthier, both physically and economically.
Dr. Moskowitz is the former deputy director of the National Institutes of Health, and most recently held a stack of impressive titles at Penn State, including “chief scientific officer.” He made it clear that he would not be here if not for the endowed chairs program. Nor would others. He spoke of the top people he’s recruited in his few months here, who have in turn recruited others, an example of the “cascade of people that are going to be recruited with each of these chairs.”
These folks aren’t just coming to buy a few T-shirts at the beach and leave. They’re here to make their home, and to build their new home into the kind of place that will attract other creative minds. The endowed chairs program is the principal factor that convinces them to pull up stakes and make the effort. “I had a wonderful job in Pennsylvania,” said Dr. Moskowitz, and he wouldn’t have left it without believing that South Carolina was committed to moving forward on a broad research front.
He doesn’t say it this way, but it’s obvious he wouldn’t have come if he had thought Mark Sanford’s “leave it alone” approach was typical of our state’s leadership.
Fortunately, it is not. The S.C. House, led by Speaker Bobby Harrell, rose up in response to the governor’s naysaying and voted unanimously to extend the endowed chairs program.
This is a moment of high irony for me. For 17 years I’ve pushed to give more power to South Carolina’s governor because our state so badly needed visionary leadership, and I thought there was little reason to expect it would come from our Legislature.
But on Thursday, it did. And if the Senate has the wisdom to follow suit, your children and my grandchildren will have reason to be grateful.

Here’s a place to talk about the school shootings

36 Replies

Whenever I see regulars commenting on something in the news on a post regarding a different subject, as Herb did here:

Does anyone know what to do about the continued massacre of citizens in public places in this country? The kids that were killed yesterday–they were my kids. Oh, not literally, but every time it happens, I see my own kids, and in a real way, we are all in this together.

I suppose some people will want to arm more people with weapons to fire back as soon as the guy starts shooting, and others will want to blame socialism for the guy’s maladjustment to begin with, but I’d like to know about some workable solutions, besides turning our society into the set of a Grade B Cowboy movie (everybody armed with pistols). Can anyone help? Who is going to stop the next guy who is mad at the world from killing another dozen people? And the next kids may very well be my own.

Posted by: Herb Brasher | Feb 15, 2008 12:06:54 PM

… I realized I may have been remiss in my duty, not having posted on a subject of high interest to readers.

So consider this post an opportunity to discuss the shootings in Illinois yesterday, and other such events.

S.C. Hospital Association on quality of care and safety, covering the uninsured

4 Replies

Here I must apologize for falling behind reporting on the meetings we have with folks pushing various points of view. It was one of the reasons I started this blog, but pulling my notes, video and all together to fairly summarize such meetings is very time-consuming. Yesterday, I had two very interesting such meetings — one with Jay Moskowitz, president of Health Sciences South Carolina in Columbia, who is an example of the kind of classy talent our governor would prefer that we NOT attract; another with some guys from the Air Force on a host of issues from the strategic to the logistical (so wide-ranging that I can’t summarize it just in passing). Unfortunately, yesterday was so busy I didn’t get to digesting those, and probably won’t today or tomorrow.

But I will keep the backlog from stacking up any higher by telling you about a meeting we had today:

Thornton Kirby — pictured above — president and CEO of the S.C. Hospital Association, came in to talk to us about two issues:

The hospitals’ initiative on health care quality and safety, and
The plan the association is helping to back to cover the uninsured in our state.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll just give you these two video clips below, roughly covering those two subjects, and give you the two links above.

I do have some views on the matters discussed — such as my own personal view (not to be confused with the editorial board’s position, certain people would prefer for me to make absolutely clear, as if the disclaimer at the top of my main page weren’t enough) that the bigger problem in this country isn’t the one-in-seven uninsured, but the vast majority who increasingly have trouble affording the privilege of being insured.

But in Mr. Kirby’s behalf, I will cede his excellent point that my sort of comprehensive solutions can only be implemented nationally, leaving the states to do what little they can. (Which is why I was happy to see what Joel Lourie has been trying to do, just to mention something I meant to say earlier.)

Stories that tell why we need single-payer

63 Replies

We continue to concentrate on the wrong thing — getting the uninsured into the present system — when we talk about health care reform.

Increasingly, those of us who are privileged to be in the system find that we can’t afford health care, either. The whole system is rotten, wasteful, too expensive and too inefficient. We pay more money to be sicker than folks in any other advanced nation.

There are a lot of problems with our system, but the biggest is the basic premise — employer-based health care through for-profit (and we’re talking for HUGE profits) private insurance companies.

If private health care coverage weren’t so expensive for all of us, the 1 in 7 who remain uncovered would be in it. But it is, and will be, expensive by definition. A profit has to be made.

A single-payer system is the logical way to go. It’s time we got logical about this monster that is now consuming 16 percent of our national economy.

I wrote this column — "‘Health care reform?’ Hush! You’ll anger the Insurance Gods!" — back in November because it’s time that people like me — in the top income quintile — started pointing out how unaffordable this wasteful system is for us, which means it’s worse for millions of others who are also in the system. An excerpt from that column:

… I make more money than most people do here in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, and I live paycheck to paycheck, in large part because of the cost of being an extremely allergic asthmatic, and needing to do what it takes to keep enough oxygen pumping to my brain to enable me to work so I can keep paying my premiums and copays. My premiums in the coming year — we’re going to a new plan — will be $274.42 on every biweekly check, not counting dental or vision care. And I’m lucky to have it. I know that, compared to most, I’ve got a sweet deal!
I’m in the top income quintile in the U.S. population, and we can’t afford cable TV, we’ve never taken a European vacation or done anything crazy like that, we haven’t bought a new car since 1986, and aside from the 401(k) I can’t touch until I retire (if I can ever afford to retire), we have no savings.
Yet I will pay my $274.42 gladly, and I will thank the one true God in whom I actually do believe that I have that insurance, and that I am in an upper-income bracket so that I can just barely pay those premiums, and that neither my wife (a cancer survivor) nor I nor either of the two children (out of five) the gods still let me cover is nearly as unhealthy as the people I see whenever I visit a hospital…

On Jan. 6, we ran an op-ed piece from B.J. Welborn that told another middle-class story. An excerpt:

But the picture is not always rosy. A recent experience made me realize that although I have a comfortable income and a good education, pay taxes and have an insurer pick up most of my health care costs, an overburdened and undermonitored health care system can leave me vulnerable and scared. Here’s my latest scare:
Last year, an out-of-state company bought my husband’s firm in Columbia. We were forced to change our insurance. This change required baffling paperwork to keep my Gleevec coming, and though we tried valiantly to figure out the process, different people at the insurance company told us different things. The process dragged out; the clock was ticking for me. Soon, three weeks passed without my lifesaving drug. I wondered if anybody cared.
I checked with my pharmacy and found it couldn’t order Gleevec from its supplier. I searched for Gleevec at other pharmacies. This drug, still in clinical trials, isn’t like a common antibiotic kept on drugstore shelves. I couldn’t find it. And even if I could find Gleevec, how would I pay for it? $3,000 this month, then $3,000 the next month?
My anxiety mounted. When I washed my face, small blemishes bled, as they do when your blood can’t do its job. I was slipping through the cracks, and I was cracking up…
The "what if" game is terrible. Millions play it, and one day, you or a
loved one could too. Anyone can get a chronic disease — diabetes, stroke,
mental illness, heart disease or cancer.
Let’s face it: You, too, could slip through the cracks of our health care
system. So, it is up to you to make our potential leaders aware of what’s
really going on. It’s not just the poor and uninsured who are hurting, it’s
also millions of hard-working, middle-class Americans who foot the bill for
others’ health care…

Then, on Friday, Feb. 1, we had this letter to the editor:

Health coverage could make writer sick
I am absolutely disgusted by the state of our nation’s health care.
I am a college-educated woman with a bachelor’s degree, an employee of a prestigious university, but most important, a wife and a mother of young children.
I live in fear that one of my family members will become seriously ill or simply require regular preventative care that my health insurance does not cover.
For example, last year, I discovered that the health insurance for S.C. state employees does not cover routine pelvic exams, and without health insurance, that type of procedure can cost almost $200. And other medical procedures aren’t covered until after I meet the $350-per-person deductible.
With one child in daycare and the costs of my children’s health care and regular childhood illnesses, I simply can’t afford to pay $200 or $350 or $550 for my own care. So I don’t go. And I hope that I don’t get sick.

MARTHA BROWN
Columbia

That letter prompted this one on today’s page:

Health insurance costs leave little for care
I read the letter “Health care coverage could make writer sick” by Martha Brown with interest.
While wholly sympathetic to her concerns, I feel, by comparison to many of us, she would be embarrassed by how good she has it.
As a provider for a healthy and active family of four, I am shackled with a monthly insurance bill in excess of $800. For this, we are provided with a policy that covers only 80 percent after a $1,000 deductible per person. It would appear that our policy was written to provide for the economic health of our insurance company, rather than that of my family.
Our provider enjoys strong local recognition, and I hope it is competitive with other carriers, but my bill has become a payment for asset protection rather than health care, and I’m not sure how well it provides for that.
“Health care is expensive” is the most common explanation received when I question our agent, doctors and others about our situation, but price is irrelevant when, after insurance payments, no money is left over for health care.
Surely, mine and Ms. Brown’s situation is not unique. We live in the greatest society that has yet existed, but our current profit-driven health care system is clearly in direct conflict with what is best for its citizens.

EDGAR PUTNAM
Columbia

More people should come forward with these stories. It’s embarrassing — neither of my two bosses, my employer or my wife, was particularly crazy about me going into such details — but this stuff needs to be available as we debate these issues. And we must debate them — the status quo is not sustainable.

Obama: ‘Those old categories don’t work’

15 Replies

Further continuing the conversation that we continued here…

As you know, I’ve challenged the facile use of the word "conservative." My point is, you can’t just say "I’m conservative" or "he’s not conservative" and have it mean anything. You have to explain, conservative how — in what way? Because alone, the word has had the meaning leached out of it.

Similarly, the word "liberal." This is an excellent video clip of Barack Obama fielding questions about having been judged the Senate’s "most liberal" member. He does a pretty fair job of deconstructing the term, and then goes on to the more important point: "This is the old politics. This is the stuff that we’re trying to get rid of."

He is speaking to… what? … the real split in American politics, between the old-style partisan warriors that we swing voters long ago got sick of, and those who would lead a different kind of pragmatic, results-oriented discussion of issues.

Clinton_2008_wart2

Scarred fighter vs. Something new

3 Replies

Can’t seem to get off the theme of my Sunday column. The WashPost has a story today leading with the very same dichotomy between the two Democratic presidential candidates:

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama offered himself as "something new" at a pair of spirited, arena-size rallies in Maryland yesterday, while his primary rival, Hillary Clinton, portrayed herself as a "battle-scarred" fighter for the middle class at more intimate events held across the region on the eve of today’s primaries.

Maybe it’s new to the folks in the "Potomac Primary" region. It certainly sums them up — the scarred fighter of the bitter partisan wars vs. someone who would lead us beyond all that. As the WashPost notes in another story today, this is indeed an opportunity for voters to "influence one of the closest presidential nominating fights in memory."

And yet, while the contest may be close, the candidates couldn’t be farther apart on this central difference between them — a new beginning on one hand, more of the same on the other.

Clinton_2008_wartback

‘Ideas Matter,’ and other stuff

24 Replies

Sorry I haven’t had time to post anything new today. As I prepared to do so, I read over the responses to my Sunday column and thought it was a conversation — or perhaps I should say, several conversations — worth continuing. There is much I could add by way of explanation to what I was saying in the Sunday piece — so much that I hardly know where to start.

Fortunately, your comments give me several starting points. So let’s address a few of these questions that go to the heart of the UnParty and what it’s all about:

Doug Ross: So when McCain rails against Democrats and Hillary Clinton/Barack Obama in the coming months (as he has already done repeatedly in the Republican debates), we can expect you to pull your endorsement?
Me: No, of course not. We’ve endorsed both McCain and Obama. If they are both the nominees, we expect each to compete strongly, each trying to convince us that he’s better than the other guy. This will be a great thing for the country, as it would be a choice between good and better, rather that the usual "bad or worse" choice that the parties give us.
If Hillary Clinton is the nominee, even less so. I would expect almost every day of that campaign would make me gladder and gladder that we endorsed McCain.

dave faust: Ideas matter.
And as long as there are competing ideas that can’t really co-exist with one another if implemented, there will be the ‘dreaded scourge’ of partisanship (which I happen to think is a good thing)… I agree with you that it’s sad that american politics have degenerated into the name-calling us/them mess it is today, but at the heart of it all is an elemental debate about ideas that are often mutually exclusive….
Me: Yes, absolutely! Ideas matter! That’s why parties are such a destructive force. The two political parties are coagulations of ideas and impulses that have little to do with each other. They are not coherent. People who think war is never the answer make common cause with, say, people who think partial-birth abortions should be federally funded EVEN THOUGH THOSE IDEAS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER. Meanwhile, folks who despise ‘amnesty’ in immigration and want less permeable borders form common cause with people who believe there must never be a new tax for any reason at any time — again, EVEN THOUGH THOSE IDEAS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER (and can even directly conflict, as when you have to grow government to shut down your border).
Now that’s fine that these people want to associate freely, and form alliances for the purposes of getting candidates elected. The problem is when these alliances cease to be ad hoc — when the alliance itself becomes the overriding thing. Then, the IDEAS are ill-served. The parties, by demanding orthodoxy and loyalty, encourage adherents to be intellectually dishonest. If the anti-war person hears a good idea for ending war from someone who wants to strengthen borders, THEY should form an alliance for the purpose of getting that goal done. (We have seen this among Ron Paul supporters, but because he IS iconoclastic, he never had a prayer of getting the party’s nomination.) The anti-war person shouldn’t be held back because securing borders is seen as "conservative," or "a Republican idea."
Think about it: Both liberals who want to raise wages and improve working conditions, and conservatives who want… to put it the way they would, "want to enforce the law," or protect their culture, or whatever … could probably have shut down the borders a while back, but party boundaries have prevented them from thinking of working together.
Alliances that should be provisional and ad hoc — such as a tax-hater joining with a moral authoritarian — and formed around specific bills or proposals become something bigger than the ideas.
So it is that when McCain and the others in the Gang of 14 make a deal that results in seating conservative judges who would otherwise have been held up, GOP "conservatives" hate McCain because he worked with Democrats to do it! And so forth…

weldon VII: So, Brad, instead of the Left fighting the Right, you see the parties fighting the Unparty as the meaningful struggle?
Pot, meet kettle.
Me: I offer the alternative, and get caught in the crossfire, because Left and Right don’t want there to be an alternative. So that leads me to conclude that the real split is between the left and right orthodoxies on the one hand, and those of us who want to chuck their whole silly game on the other. Hence my column. Hell, I don’t want to fight. But I’m certainly not going to sit still for their foolishness.

Richard L. Wolfe: I wonder if those in the press who so gleefully backed McCain will stay the course if young Obama is the opponent?
Me: Yes. Absolutely. We will "stay the course" of liking both, and may the better of two fine candidates win! What’s so hard to understand about this? I’ll tell you — your thinking is canalized to the point that you simply can’t understand the simple fact that a reasonable person could like both of these guys. You think it has to be either-or, but it doesn’t. Sure, only one can be president, but you don’t have to dislike one to like the other.

bud: As I’ve said on a number of occasions I don’t find partisanship necessarily a bad thing. We’re all partisan for the causes we support. And that includes Brad, whose brand of big-government partisanship is just as strident as those of us on either the left or right. So rather than fight it, let’s embrace our nation as one of partisans.
Me: bud has always had trouble understanding what I’m talking about when I decry partisanship. Read what I said to dave above. People should fight for an idea. What they should NOT fight for is a TEAM that may agree with them on one issue, but not on a host of others. A person who truly THINKS about ideas will agree with Democrats on some things, and with Republicans on others. It’s when you choose sides and stick to it that ideas start to be undermined.

H.M. Murdock: The Gingrich-led Republicans started the current rift in American politics during the early 90’s, as the GOP repeatedly attempted to embarrass or demean the Clintons over issues that had nothing to do with public policy or running the country–Nannygate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Jennifer Flowers, Vince Foster, Monica, etc.
The public still is paying the price for the GOP’s scorched earth policy against the Clintons and the Dems. Swiftboating now is expected, tolerated, and even admired by some kooks who would rather win a political argument than advance the best interests of the country.
Me: You’re missing the fact that to Republicans, Democrats started all the "-gate" stuff, with "Water-" and "Iran-". So they wanted to get the Dems back for those. And once again, this is the problem with parties. There’s no reason that a person outraged over Watergate wouldn’t also be outraged over Whitewater. Nor should a political label require you to be outraged over any two of the things that your party has taken on as a cause. As for "Swiftboating" — I need to do a separate post on that. It’s come to be freighted with meaning among Democrats that I’m not sure the invented verb sustains well.

bud: I’m going to step outside the subject area to relate a story about the free-market and how unscrupulous businesses can be….
Me: Thanks, bud. You’re making my point for me. I’m always saying that my own experience causes me to have no more faith in large private organizations than in government. This is why I argue so vehemently with the people who think the public sector is always inefficient, bureaucratic and wasteful and that the private sector is always better. Life experiences don’t bear this out. People just know more about the public stupidities and waste because they’re public. When I express ideas based on these life experiences, bud calls me a "big government guy." Truth is, I just don’t see that the private sector is better, and therefore I’m not dismissive of the government trying to address problems.

I realize those answers may be too stream-of-consciousness to make complete sense, but I wanted to hold up my end of the conversation, and only had minutes to do so. Gotta run. I’m sure we’ll revisit all these topics.

Club for Growth to McCain: Do our bidding

36 Replies

Finally, I have a moment to blog, and so I will now share with you the WSJ opinion piece that three people have pointed out to me today.

The Club for Growth, shocked that neither of the two remaining Republican candidates is the sort who will do their bidding, completely misses the point that, contrary to its own mythology, it is badly out of step with the Republican electorate. That means its last refuge is gone, just as it was prepared to take over the world. Nasty things, reversals.

Therefor the Club’s advice to the man who is getting nominated without it is that he simply must do its bidding in the matter of choosing a running mate. To wit, as set out by Club President Pat Toomey:

While congratulations are still premature, with Mitt
Romney dropping out of the race yesterday it is now very likely that
the Republican Party will nominate Sen. John McCain for president. If
that happens, the GOP will, for the first time since 1976, select a
candidate at odds with a large portion of its conservative members to
be the standard bearer. At the same time, the party is more estranged
from independent swing voters than it has been for decades.
This will pose a twin challenge for Mr. McCain. To
meet it, he will have to become the champion of the brand of economic
conservatism that has won national elections for Republicans since 1980…

To which I say, how come? He got past the hurdle that theoretically requires your favor without you. Your views don’t amount to diddly among the independents he has to win now. Sure, the really emotional types who are ticked over the existence of Mexican In Our Midst might stay home and give it to Hillary out of pique. But those fellas have nothing to lose. You are men of business. You may be crazy (politically speaking), but you’re not stupid. Are you?

Anyway, here’s where it really gets wild. Here is also where we find out why the economic libertarian extremists from Wall Street and other foreign parts have devoted so much of their ready cash to South Carolina politics. Obviously, this is the basket that holds 40 percent of their eggs. They have five veep suggestions to make, and two of them are South Carolinians: Mark Sanford and Jim DeMint.

Really. John McCain just wrapped up the nomination his way, with the support of such truly conservative South Carolinians as Bobby Harrell and Henry McMaster, and the Club says he should pick either the state’s most prominent advocate of Mitt Romney, who just proved his lack of appeal; or the guy who is such a nonteam-player, such an anti-team player, that he couldn’t be bothered to back anybody for president. A guy who is so obviously for nobody can expect nobody to be grateful enough to him to ask him to come along for the ride. Why would a candidate think he’d be helped by a guy who couldn’t be bothered to pick up an oar when it counted? Principled disagreement, a la DeMint, a ticket-balancing nominee might go for. But a guy who’s for no one but himself? Fuggedaboudit.

But why go for either of them when there’s an actually attractive candidate out there with vote-getting ability? Enter Mike Huckabee. But that doesn’t suit Mr. Toomey:

Moving forward, Mr. Huckabee on the ticket would be a disaster. The former governor has a record of raising taxes and increasing spending. Picking him would only make it more likely that conservatives will sit on their hands come November.

What could these fellas have against ol’ Huck? Could it be that he goes all over the country calling them the "Club for Greed"? Could it be that folks who don’t vote for McCain keep voting for the guy who calls them the — let’s say it again — "Club for Greed" (there’s video on this link)?, who says theirs is "a sleazy way to do politics"?

"Fortunately," breathes Mr. Toomey with relief, "there is no shortage of true-blue fiscal conservatives in the GOP" — meaning "guys like us," for the Club is one of those outfits out there that defines "conservative" as "guys who are true-blue to us."

But obviously, "conservatives" by this definition are indeed quite scarce. Out of 49 states, they can only come up with three. The other two they dig up from a state in which McCain and Huckabee won 63 percent of the Republican vote, and the only guy that either of the two guys they dug up supported got 15 percent.

Oh, heck yeah — that’s a BIG help. Thanks but no thanks, Club for Gree-, I mean "Growth."

Republicans for Hillary

34 Replies

As you know, I keep struggling with the terminology used to describe those Republicans who keep wanting to strike out at and pull down the man who quite obviously is going to be their party’s nominee, whatever they say or do.

"Conservative" is wholly inadequate for various reasons previously cited, and I’ll add another one here: No "conservative" would do something so reckless and destructive to his own cause. If a "conservative" would do that, the word means nothing at all. Actual conservatives are putting out releases such as this one, which I received this morning (the headline, in case you’re too lazy to click on the link, is "Reaganauts for McCain").

So let’s try this one on: "Republicans for Hillary." This fits in various ways:

Only those who want a Democrat to win the election would keep driving a wedge into their own party.
Only those who want a Democrat to win the election would do anything to try to delay or prevent the nomination of the only candidate with the independent appeal that is absolutely necessary for them to either Democratic nominee.
While Barack Obama could compete with John McCain among those same independents (and folks, we swing voters are the ones who decide elections), Sen. Clinton is far less likely to be able to do so. She alienates such voters. Therefor, if she is the nominee, she would love it if these alleged "conservatives" managed to pull off a miracle for Mitt Romney. But since that isn’t going to happen now, she depends on them to weaken McCain as much as they can — something they seem eager to do.
These folks are the natural GOP counterparts to the kind of Democrats who support Sen. Clinton — those who relish polarization and pointless partisan bickering, and put them above all things, certainly above the good of the nation.

Of course, if I get my way on the Democratic side, Sen. Clinton won’t be the nominee. But I don’t think "Republicans for Obama" fits these people; I don’t think they’d be as comfortable backing someone so post-partisan as he. It’s McCain’s very cross-party appeal that they hate about him; it seems unlikely they’d like it any better in Obama.

So "Republicans for Hillary" it is.

Another overused (and ill-defined) word: ‘Conservative’

16 Replies

Having switched to PBS, where apparently they have a larger vocabulary, I’m not hearing "presumptive" so much, so that’s good.

What I am hearing to an absurd degree is the term "conservative," and always used either with no defining context, or with a contradictory context.

For instance — one of the talking heads was going on about how McCain had not yet been declared the winner of his home state some 90 minutes after polls closed (the irony was that McCain was declared the winner while this guy was talking), and saying that exit polls indicated it was because of self-described "conservative" voters.

And what do they mean by "conservative?" Well, apparently no one thought to ask them — which I would certainly do before turning around and reporting that they were conservative, because the word seems to be so malleable and subjective these days.

Anyway, we were told that Mitt Romney was leading among people who wanted to deport all the illegal aliens. Of course, those people are not conservatives — conservatives are sensible folk who don’t entertain fantasies — so that was apparently an unrelated phenomenon.

Then they spoke of voters who were opposed to abortion. OK, I thought, now we’re getting somewhere…. except that these voters were going, NOT for the senator who’s been strongly pro-life his entire public life, but for the ex-governor of Taxachusetts whose position on abortion depends upon what office he’s running for at a given moment. What on Earth is with these people?

Basically, I think newsfolk — so many of them being self-reported "liberals," whatever they mean by that — tend to be very gullible and just take people at their word when they say they’re "conservatives," sort of the way they tend to lump people into the realm of the unintelligible if they happen to be evangelicals (hence their constant surprise whenever Mike Huckabee gets a few votes).

Taking Mr. Retske’s ‘Conservatism’ test

44 Replies

Yesterday, one of the first comments on my "Give me that old-time conservatism" column post was from Gene Retske, who proposed the following:

Brad, c’mon, do you really believe that you are a conservative? Do you think that Roe v Wade was improperly decided? Do you think Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of the 20th Century? Do you think America is the model for the world, and is obligated to spread democracy? Do you think America is a country founded on Judeo-Christian principles? Would you leave your wife for Ann Coulter?

If you can’t answer "yes" to all these questions, you may not be a true conservative.

John McCain believes in Duty, Honor and Country, for sure. That these basic criteria are touted as presidential qualities shows how far down we have come. There are over 12 million current and former military who also have these qualities, and are thus more qualified than Hillary or Obama to be president.

Sorry, Brad, you can’t redefine conservatism to your standards, nor can John McCain.

Hey, I’m good at tests! So here we go:

Brad, c’mon, do you really believe that you are a conservative? No. I utterly reject both the "conservative" and "liberal" labels, because the popular, current definitions of those terms describe world views that each contain much that is repugnant to me. One of the main reasons I do this site is to have at least one place in the blogosphere that provides an alternative to the perpetual extreme-left vs. extreme-right argument that tends to predominate in this medium. Traditionally, however, there is much (or perhaps I should say, was much) in both conservatism and liberalism that I see as being of value. The last part of my column Sunday was an evocation of what I see as good in conservatism. As for liberalism — well, there used to be much good in that, too, but it really started to degenerate starting about 1968.
Do you think that Roe v Wade was improperly decided? Yes, absolutely. In fact, you don’t state it nearly strongly enough. It was disastrous, on many levels. First, there is the obvious — more abortions. But then it’s not the job of the Court to decide cases in terms of outcomes (a point on which the admirers of Roe would disagree). Therefore in answer to whether it was "improperly decided" I’ll say this: The ruling was based on a bogus proposition — that the Constitution guarantees a "right to privacy." It does no such thing. (I’ve always been struck by the way the presumption was said to arise from a "penumbra" — suggestive to me of the Shadow of Death.) Finally, I’ll say — and once again, this is irrelevant to whether it was properly decided, but I think it speaks to where you intended to go with this — that this disaster of a ruling is probably more to blame than any other one cause for the nasty polarization of our politics. This country would be a better place in many ways without Roe.
Do you think Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of the 20th Century? Absolutely not. While I don’t dislike him today as much as I did at the time, I think he did much to ruin the sort of conservatism that I have always valued — in particular, he helped instill the imprudent notion that we can have all the blessings of good government (and folks, there’s no such thing as private property — to cite one such "blessing" — without a sound system affirming, protecting and supporting it) without paying for it. The grossly immature Gimme-Gimme wing exemplified by the likes of Grover Norquist is a product of the Reagan era. As for defeating communism — I give him credit for doing his part, as had every president of either party since Truman — and he had the honor to have the watch when it all came tumbling down. If he provided the final push needed to reach the tipping point — which seems to be the consensus, although I have no idea how to measure such things — hurrah for him. He certainly demonstrated resolve — such as the resolve to spend the Soviets under the table. To the extent that’s what did it, hoorah again. But was that "conservative?" Oh, and if you want to talk about "amnesty" for illegals (which I don’t, but a lot of folks who call themselves "conservatives" do) — Reagan went for it; McCain does not. (Let me point out that Sen. McCain, unlike Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney, has been opposed to abortion his entire career.)
Do you think America is the model for the world, and is obligated to spread democracy? Yep, in many ways (although obviously we’re a poor model on health care). That’s why I’m an unreconstructed interventionist — but then, so were liberals before 1968. In fact, as I’ve often said, the invasion of Iraq was the most liberal thing that George W. Bush ever did — which is probably why he botched the aftermath. Like most conservatives, he doesn’t believe in nation-building. Like liberals of the endangered JFK stripe, I do. I’m assuming you meant to go in that direction. Or perhaps you’re speaking of the "city on a hill" notion of American exceptionalism? I’m for that, too. But again, there’s nothing conservative about that. To the extent that we are a beacon for the world, it’s based on liberal principles — in the sense of advancing liberal democracy. But then, I’m using terminology that has little to do with the post-Reagan definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" in our domestic politics (although, I’m happy to say, the term is still current in an international context).
Do you think America is a country founded on Judeo-Christian principles? I believe it was founded by people whose culture was informed by Judeo-Christian principles, such "freethinkers" as Thomas Paine aside. If it helps you any, I’m much more an admirer of John Adams (he who wrote, "Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.") than Thomas Jefferson, although Jefferson probably had a greater impact on the development of the country’s self-concept, which is a shame.
Would you leave your wife for Ann Coulter? Certainly not! Nor would I leave her for French Socialist leader Ségolène Royal, who is a LOT more attractive. I would cross a continent to avoid either Ann Coulter or Paul Krugman, either Rush Limbaugh or Frank Rich, or any of those who delight in tearing this country apart. My support for both John McCain and Barack Obama is based in the same principles that cause me to utterly reject the Coulters and Krugmans of the world.

I’ll have to leave it to Mr. Retske to score this. Since it was an essay test (my favorite kind, much better than multiple guess), and since he’s the "teacher" in this instance, I guess he’ll assign whatever values (in every sense) he chooses to each question.

But if I flunk, fine by me. See my answer to question 1.

Give me that old-time conservatism

45 Replies

My regular readers will recognize this column as having been adapted from a post from late last week. Sorry to be repetitive, but increasingly (and conveniently) I find blog posts to be adaptable into columns. I’ve developed it a bit — cutting some here, adding some there (particularly, a new ending, and therefor a new point). But the inspiration was the same.

Aside from making my seven-day week a little more manageable, adapting a column such as this one at least exposes it to a slightly more friendly audience. The Blogosphere is more densely populated with the kinds of people who would take exception to the ideas expressed herein. I find that the newspaper’s readership contains more folks who harbor my notion of the best sort of conservatism. Every once in a while, even I would like to get a little encouragement, you know. Speaking of which, thank you, Chief Warrant Officer Libbon. It was good to get your message before the mob started screaming.

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
THE IDEOLOGUES in the Republican Party — you know, the ones who don’t care who can actually become president, as long as their candidate thinks exactly the way they do about everything — don’t know whether to spit or go blind with John McCain as their presumptive nominee.
And I gotta tell ya, I’m loving it. My happiness will be complete once the “anger” faction of the Democratic Party is similarly discombobulated by having Barack Obama as its nominee. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves on that.
My other favorite candidate, John McCain (The State has endorsed both him and Sen. Obama), may not quite have the Republican nomination sewn up, but he’s close enough to it to give the more objectionable elements within his party considerable indigestion. True, Mitt Romney is doing everything he possibly can to stop the McCain bandwagon, spending $1 million on ads in California alone.
But while this moment of promise lasts, let’s savor it.
A colleague who listens to such things says right-wing talk radio is abuzz with apocalyptic rantings about the End Times for the GOP, which sounds lovely to me, UnParty adherent that I am. But I content myself with reading about it in the papers. Let’s take just one day (Thursday) of one newspaper (The Wall Street Journal) widely associated with Conservative Orthodoxy. Under the headline, “McCain Takes the GOP Lead,” we read:

Republicans have a clear front-runner in Arizona Sen. John McCain. By nearly all accounts, he is the candidate many Democrats least want to face, the one who would best remake his party’s battered image and draw independent voters needed to win in November.
But Sen. McCain still confronts a problem both in the remainder of the nomination race, and, if he wins, in the fall: He is simply loathed by many fellow Republicans, often for the very bipartisanship and maverick streak that attracts independents.

Under “Giuliani Fund-Raisers Sit on Fence for Now,” we learn that while Rudy Giuliani may have pulled out…

Mr. Giuliani’s well-heeled supporters might not throw their money behind the cash-strapped Arizona senator so fast. “We haven’t decided what we’re going to do,” says T. Boone Pickens, the Dallas tycoon who has raised more than $1 million for Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, since late 2006…

Then, on the opinion pages, that font of oracular conservative wisdom, the very lead editorial of the hallowed WSJ itself, under the real-life headline “McCain’s Apostasies,” pronounces the following:

Mr. McCain’s great political strength has also long been his main weakness, which is that his political convictions are more personal than ideological. He believes in duty, honor and country more than he does in any specific ideas.
These personal qualities are genuine political assets…. But he is now on the cusp of leading a coalition that also believes in certain principles, and its “footsoldiers” (to borrow a favorite McCain word) need to be convinced that the Senator is enough on their side to warrant enthusiastic support…

By “ideas,” the Journal does not mean “removing the inordinate influence of money from politics,” or “restraining wasteful spending” or “believing the surge would work” or “life begins at conception” or “maybe we should secure our borders without totally alienating the Hispanic vote.” No, it means such lofty concepts as: “What do you always, always do with a tax? Cut it!”
Duty, honor and country indeed! What’s conservative about that stuff?
Speaking of the Gimme-Gimme wing of the party, another newspaper (conservatives should cover their sensitive ears before I name it), The New York Times, reported on Friday that “leaders of the right” have practically been doing backflips trying to adjust to the new reality. My favorite in this regard is Grover “Shrink Government Until You Can Drown it in a Bathtub” Norquist, who goes further than anyone to spin this into a personal victory:
“He has moved in the right direction strongly and forcefully on taxes,” Mr. Norquist says, adding that he’s been talking to Sen. McCain’s “tax guys” for some time. So you see, not only does this make everything OK, but Grover gets to take credit! Because, as anyone who has ever had cause to regret signing his “No New Taxes” pledge can testify, it’s all about Grover.
By now some of you think I have it in for all things “conservative.” I don’t. I just grew up with a different concept of it from that which has in recent years been appropriated by extremists. I grew up in a conservative family — a Navy family, as a matter of fact. To the extent that “conservative ideas” were instilled in me, they weren’t the kind that make a person fume over paying his taxes, or get apoplectic at the sound of spoken Spanish. They were instead the old-fashioned ones: Traditional moral values. Respect for others. Good stewardship. Plain speaking.
And finally, the concept that no passing fancy, no merely political idea, is worth as much as Duty, Honor and Country.

To learn more about the UnParty, go to http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

Ideologues try to come to grips with McCain’s ‘weakness’

54 Replies

The poor ideologues in the Republican Party — you know, the ones who don’t give a damn who can actually become president, as long as their candidate thinks exactly the way they do about everything — don’t know whether to spit or go blind with John McCain as their presumptive nominee. And I gotta tell ya, I’m loving it. My happiness will be complete once the ANGER faction of the Democratic party is similarly discombobulated by having Barack Obama as their nominee.

Anyway, to see what I’m saying, read The Wall Street Journal. In today’s paper alone, you can read this story:

For the first time in a presidential campaign already a year old, Republicans have a clear front-runner in Arizona Sen. John McCain. By nearly all accounts, he is the candidate many Democrats least want to face, the one who would best remake his party’s battered image and draw independent voters needed to win in November.

But Sen. McCain still confronts a problem both in the remainder of the nomination race, and, if he wins, in the fall: He is simply loathed by many fellow Republicans, often for the very bipartisanship and maverick streak that attracts independents. His biggest, and perhaps final, test comes Tuesday, when 21 states hold contests — most of them open only to Republican voters….

Then there’s this piece, which observes:

All eyes were on Mr. McCain, who after winning three contests in the pivotal states of New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, is now considered the front-runner. He took his time in the spotlight to blast Wall Street. "There’s some greedy people on Wall Street that perhaps need to be punished," Mr. McCain said in response to a question about how to help people keep their homes and avoid foreclosure.

The emphasis is mine. That’s gotta hurt, if you’re a WSJ kind of guy, coming from the likely GOP nominee. Then there’s this piece about all the big-money guys who just don’t know what to do now:

Rudy Giuliani, the onetime Republican presidential front-runner, retreated from the race and backed John McCain. But Mr. Giuliani’s well-heeled supporters might not throw their money behind the cash-strapped Arizona senator so fast.
"We haven’t decided what we’re going to do," says T. Boone Pickens, the Dallas tycoon who has raised more than $1 million for Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, since late 2006….

Then you get to the opinion pages, where pundits struggle to understand just why this iconoclast keeps winning:

John McCain beat Mitt Romney by 5.5 points in New Hampshire and by five again in Florida. Three months ago, Mr. McCain was a 10% cipher in Florida, with no organization and no donors. This week one saw why John McCain is basically five points better than Mitt Romney, or Rudy Giuliani, at the most fundamental job in politics — connecting.
When Mr. McCain took the stage in Sun City, the applause was polite. When he finished, he got a standing ovation. He has been at this game a long time, and his ability to sense and ride the emotional flow of an audience is astonishing.
It discomfits some, including me, that Mr. McCain seems like a live, capped volcano. But in front of an audience like this, and before a younger group two days later at the Tampa Convention Center, he stood with that tight, little upper body of coiled electricity and plugged his message of honor, commitment and threat straight into the guts of his listeners….

Finally, one must turn to the oracle itself, the very LEAD EDITORIAL of the hallowed WSJ, under the headline, "McCain’s Apostasies" (I am not making this up!), to learn this:

Mr. McCain’s great political strength has also long been his main weakness, which is that his political convictions are more personal than ideological. He believes in duty, honor and country more than he does in any specific ideas.
These personal qualities are genuine political assets, and they are part of his appeal as a potential Commander in Chief. Among other things, they help explain why he held firm on Iraq when the fair-weather hawks lost their resolve. But he is now on the cusp of leading a coalition that also believes in certain principles, and its "footsoldiers" (to borrow a favorite McCain word) need to be convinced that the Senator is enough on their side to warrant enthusiastic support…

You can just see them all thinking, Whaddayagonna DO with a guy who believes in "duty, honor and country" more than he believes in, I don’t know, some worthwhile idea like cutting taxes? How can you trust a guy like that? How can you turn your back on him?

The thing that gets me is that these people are dead serious. They think "duty, honor and country" are all very well and good in a Boy Scout, or a character in a movie or something, but a little bit dangerous in a Leader of the Free World.

I am so glad that for once we’ve got an alternative — and maybe by the time it’s over, two alternatives — to the greedheads on one side who think "Me First and the Gimme-Gimmes" is an "idea," and one to live by, and those on the other side who think what this country needs is somebody to FIGHT with Republicans, as though virtue is thus defined. Thank the Lord for John McCain and Barack Obama.

A dialogue about Hillary

23 Replies

Hello Mr. Warthen:

Thank you for your reply. I posted to this effect in response to the blog entry in question, the one along the lines of "Watch Out, Hillary’s in Victim Mode." With all due respect, I feel it was totally unprofessional, snarky and uncalled for. Several others flamed you for it in the comments section, and you replied apologetically, to your credit, to one of them – "redd," I think it was.
As I said in a second comment, in response to your apology of sorts, I know Mrs. Clinton. I had the pleasure of working on her campaign staff in 1992 on the Clinton-Gore ’92 campaign. She was kind, gracious, courteous and considerate to us several young ‘uns from around the country who had dropped everything to come help her and him. I have seen a side of her you most likely have not. She is not a two-dimensional cartoon villainess. She is a very bright, forceful, intense advocate for the causes in which she believes, and yes, she can be tough as nails. When was the last time that was a fault in a political leader.
I could go on – but the notion that she is somehow evil and that Obama is pure as the driven snow is a bit much to take. Did you see where he turned his back on her last night, even as she had the good grace to extend a hand in friendship and good grace to Sen. Kennedy, who had just endorsed him? Do you forgive his campaign for fanning the flames of a race war so as to win South Carolina, based on Bill Clinton calling his claims of purity on the Iraq War a "fairy tale"?
All I am saying is they’re both playing tough, at times dirty political hardball. Neither campaign is peopled with saints. They will, however, either of them, almost certainly do a better job than has Mr. Bush, given the opportunity. Be fair. That’s all. Personal invective of the sort you directed toward her should be beneath someone of your station.
My two cents.

Christopher A. Stratton, Esq.
West Hartford, CT

From: Warthen, Brad – External Email
To: Christopher Stratton
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2008 1:00 PM
Subject: RE: Who’s the real victim?

Thanks for going to the trouble to further share your thoughts (mind if I post them?).
I think if you go back before this past week, you won’t find a whole lot of criticism of Sen. Clinton from me. The closest you’ll find will be my column openly worrying about the fact that a Clinton nomination would worsen polarization in the country. And if you can spot anything "snarky" in that — anything other than what I just said, an expression of concern (my distaste for our nation’s increasing partisan divisions is long-established).
Over the past week, however, I’ve formed an increasingly negative impression. You can probably track it day by day on my blog. It really got started AFTER our editorial board meeting with Obama. I’ve just been more and more alarmed at the idea of her winning the nomination, and more and more glad we chose Obama.
Maybe the things I’m reacting to were always there; or maybe it’s stepped up in the past week (which seems to be the conventional wisdom). Or maybe before last week, I was just trying so hard not to choose between them before our meetings that I let a lot of stuff slide. I don’t know. I do know that I’ve taken a different tone the past week, and that it reflects what I’ve been thinking…

Hello Again, Mr. Warthen:
I very much appreciate your kindly following up on my thoughts and comments, and I respect that your general bent appears to be more deliberative and thoughtful than the taunt against Sen. Clinton which was my introduction to you. And yes, of course, please feel free to post my remarks from the prior e-mail below.
I think the difficulty here is the translation between the more private, extraordinarily decent Hillary I have seen up close on several occasions and the sometimes over-intense Hillary that comes across in public. I think she may not see herself as the world sees her (as is true for so many of us, but for so few of us does it matter so much as it does for her). She has certain natural tendencies which don’t come off super well before a broad audience. She is a very, very intense figure. She is brilliantly intelligent and passionately committed to her causes. And she has the courage and the confidence of her convictions. And because of the courage and confidence, she ordinarily trusts her natural reactions, which at times are, to put it bluntly, to kick fanny and take names – to vanquish her opponent via sheer intelligence and intensity, in the first instance, and by other means at times as well. This is a role that suited her well as the wife of a major political figure, a sort of enforcer for her husband and an intellectual heavyweight who could also simply outsmart and out-argue dadgum near any foe.
Now, though, those tendencies can come off as over-intense and scary when she is gunning to be the top dog in our country – and in the world for that matter. I think she may be starting to see that, but she is having to feel her way through this minefield in front of the entire world and is not extraordinarily sure-footed about it, and this has somewhat shaken her confidence – she doesn’t know when to trust her instincts and when not to. Add to that that she is up against an opponent who, sheerly as a stump salesman and presence, has the agility and grace of a lead dancer in the New York City Ballet. (The problem I have with Mr. Obama, whom I admire greatly and sincerely, is not with his talent, it’s with his seasoning, his reliability, his depth of experience and understanding. For me, Hillary is money in the bank on policy, a deeply smart, sensible, practical hand. Oddly enough, it is a bit of a conservative, cautious streak in me that is part of why I am supporting her. Personal loyalty is part of the equation for me, but by no means all.)
Speaking of personal loyalty, Mr. W, please note that it is no coincidence that so many people who work or have worked for Sen. Clinton are fiercely loyal, and it’s not due to some brainwashing regimen, to that I can personally attest. She is extraordinarily gracious, courteous, respectful, considerate and loyal. She is a very fine friend to have and is widely loved, not merely liked, by those who spend more than a little time in contact with her. I have heard it said many times that people who have known them both have a pronounced tendency to favor her over her husband, and – remember – it was he who long ago said, back when they were finishing law school, that she, not he, should be the one who ran someday for president. I think he was deeply wise on many levels in that insight. (I think he was a very fine president on policy, by and large, but I think his personal flaws and weaknesses – and not just the philandering business – greatly undermined what could have been a far more successful presidency than it was.)
So, catching my breath here for a moment, if she does win election to the presidency, Mr. W, I think Ms. Clinton will diligently and energetically do the rather extensive clean-up job that our federal government needs. She, better than nearly anyone, knows the extent of the damage and the fixes and repairs that need to be put into place across the broad expanse of our federal government. She will pursue these improvements and repairs with great energy, consideration and intelligence. With utmost respect, I do not believe Senator Obama can match her in these regards. She is, in my considered opinion, on balance, the better choice, but that is not to say that others cannot reasonably disagree. (I would, though, so love to see a ticket headed by her with him as the VP and still and yet hold out hope that this can happen – remember Sen. Kerry rather disliked Sen. Edwards and JFK and LBJ were not exactly chums.)
Lastly, what I have difficulty abiding is numerous supporters of Sen. Obama’s viewing this as a clear cut, obvious choice between good and evil. It is not, and that is foolish. There are too many people whose tempers are running too hot. I hope we can heal this rift in our party, to which both sides have contributed far too much. It is highly counterproductive.
That’s my bit for tonight.

Cheers,

Christopher A. Stratton, Esq.
West Hartford, CT

An endorsement indifferent to race, gender

19 Replies

Folks who have read me over the years know that I am somewhat turned off by Identity Politics — all that "MY race," "MY gender" stuff. That’s one reason why I like a guy like Barack Obama, whose appeal transcends skin color. I am even more pleased that his supporters get it, chanting "Race Doesn’t Matter" in the moment of his South Carolina triumph.

So it is that I am further pleased by the way author Toni Morrison has endorsed Barack Obama. A friend passed on to me this bit from an ABCNews story about the letter of support she sent:

Morrison writes of her admiration for Hillary Clinton but says she "cared little for her gender as a source of my admiration".

"Nor do I care very much for your race[s]," Morrison continues to
Obama, "I would not support you if that was all you had to offer or
because it might make me ‘proud.’ "

Even better is this passage quoted by The Associated Press:

"In addition to keen intelligence, integrity and a rare
authenticity, you exhibit something
that has nothing to do with age,
experience, race or gender and something I don’t see in other
candidates," Morrison wrote. "That something is a creative imagination
which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom. It is too bad if we
associate it only with gray hair and old age. Or if we call searing
vision naivete. Or if we believe cunning is insight. Or if we settle
for finessing cures tailored for each ravaged tree in the forest while
ignoring the poisonous landscape that feeds and surrounds it.

"Wisdom
is a gift; you can’t train for it, inherit it, learn it in a class, or
earn it in the workplace — that access can foster the acquisition of
knowledge, but not wisdom," Morrison wrote.

When I read that passage, "if we believe cunning is insight," it occurs to me that her respect for Hillary Clinton must have suffered a setback in recent days, which may have led to this endorsement.

Mind you, this is the writer who dubbed Bill Clinton the "first black president." For HER to embrace the idea of brushing race aside is particularly meaningful. Just as it was so powerful for a victory won with 80 percent of the black vote to be celebrated with "Race Doesn’t Matter."

Black folk are, generally speaking, more mindful that white folks of race — it’s a source of much of the tragic cognitive divide in our country. If Obama’s support had been mostly white, that chant would have meant less. As it was, it was a huge step forward for us all.

Our interview with the winner: Obama speaking to our editorial board

3 Replies

All week, I wanted to stop and edit some of the video I shot during our editorial board interview with Barack Obama Monday morning, but, well… it’s been a busy week.

I finally tried to start putting together a post on it this afternoon, but my internet connection at home crashed. So, now that it’s all over for South Carolina, I’m sitting here on the air at ETV using their Web connection, and putting up some rough unedited clips. Better late than never, right? No? Whatever. I thought you still might like to hear the man who won so hugely here talking at some greater length than what you get on the Boob Tube usually.

As regular viewers will know, my little camera only shoots three-minute clips at a time, which means they can stop and restart in odd places. But I’ve put together four sequential clips here, with only one or two seconds of real time between them, from the opening moments of the meeting.

What you’ll see here in these four clips is Sen. Obama responding to our standard opening question we use in all candidate endorsement interviews for all offices. It’s simple: We ask him to state why he’s running, and why he should be the one to get the nomination — and in this case, presumably, the presidency. Sometimes we couch in terms of a 10-minute version of the candidate’s stump speech.

This serves two purposes. First, we editors don’t get out on the trail the way reporters do, so it’s good to hear the overview of how this candidate chooses to present himself. Second, it helps us cut through the sound-bite, 24/7 news headline of the moment and step back and take a broader view of who this candidate is and what his campaign is about.

Also, it gives us a sort of base line for the rest of our conversation, as we dig further into what the candidate is really about.

The four clips include Obama’s full answer to that question, minus the second or so intervals it takes for my camera to start rolling again after it shuts off at the end of a three-minute clip. A little way through the fourth one, the senator starts answering our second inevitable question that we ask specifically of presidential candidates, which always takes roughly this form: What is America’s proper role in the world, and how should it go about playing that role?

The first segment is at the top of this post. The other three follow:

Part II:

Part III:

Part IV:

Perhaps when things slow down, I can put up some further parts of the interview, for posterity. Anyway, what you see above is the candidate who made such a tremendous impression on our editorial board — and obviously, on South Carolina voters.

When party is set aside, things get done

5 Replies

Back on this post, Mike Cakora said there were things we could do to get the economy back on track, but there was a catch:

…it could be that one party develops a comprehensive approach to taxes,
healthcare, energy, and the other stuff that ails us. I know you won’t
like this, but it’s going to take a party to do so because any
comprehensive fix will involve leadership, discipline, and limited
horse-trading to deal with the special-interest harpies.

Actually, Mike, it doesn’t take a party to act in time of crisis. It takes the opposite; it takes willingness to cast partisan considerations aside. Conveniently, there’s an object lesson of this atop today’s front page in The Wall Street Journal:

WASHINGTON — On Jan. 17, Washington’s mad dash to finalize an economic-stimulus plan ran into a wall.

On an afternoon conference call, the two top Democrats
in Congress warned President Bush against going public with his own
plan. "People will have to come out and criticize it if you put out a
plan," Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, said, according to
people familiar with the matter. "It will look like you’re trying to
jam us on this." Mr. Bush said he’d think it over.

Democrats left the call fuming. Some discussed rushing
out their own plan to avoid being upstaged. The effort by both sides to
keep their partisan instincts under wraps was coming unraveled. Ten
minutes later, the president averted a clash by instructing his
Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, to call Capitol Hill leaders and say
the White House would keep mum on the details of its plan.

A week later, congressional leaders and the White House announced their
boldest attempt yet to address the economic uncertainty that some fear
could lead to the deepest U.S. downturn in decades.

Mind you, I’m not saying this stimulus plan is necessarily the right action. But having slept through Ben Stein’s class, I can’t say I know what the right action is. Considering I have to trust other folks to be smart for me on this, I am WAY more likely to trust a bipartisan consensus action than a partisan one. Yes, that could mean a plan too watered down to do any good even if it moves in the right direction. Right now, I prefer the conservative (and no, folks, I don’t mean politically conservative in the popular sense; I’m using the word in a plain English manner) approach. I guess for the time being I’m trusting Brooks’ ecology to set the balance right.

Of course, when we get to the bread lines, I might be calling for a New Deal.

But in the meantime, we need Dems and Repubs to act like grownups and think about the good of the nation for a change, instead of scoring points on each other in the nauseating game that they usually play. And Sen. Reid, your people would not "have to come out and criticize," nor would the president’s people "have to" do likewise, no matter how compelling your visceral compulsion may seem.

To the contrary, you all have an obligation to the country not to go into knee-jerk partisan fulmination mode, particularly in a time of crisis. Thank you, Sen. Reid and President Bush, for realizing that and managing to overcome that impulse and act appropriately, even if you did it only out of electoral fear of those of us who are sick and tired of your default modes, and even if it’s only for this one brief moment.

Mama! Greenville’s copying us! Make ’em stop!

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits